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Kanye West To Make A Short Film In The Middle East

Kanye West isn't just satisfied with being a multi-platinum recording artist, fashion entrepreneur, and Twitter icon because The Observer is reporting that he is currently scouting locations in the Middle East for a short film that he is set to direct. Much like he did with his 35-minute film for his song "Runaway", West's latest film will be a long-form music video/art film hybrid.

Apparently Kanye sent members of his team to Abu Dhabi, Dubai, and Doha Qatar in order to meet with film companies and government officials native to those parts. There is currently a competitive bidding war in the process by these countries to gain the contracts involved in this production.

“In Abu Dhabi, Dubai and Doha all of the film initiatives are government controlled,” one source involved in the talks told The Observer. “A bidding war is going on between various government entities and private investors to fund the film. There’s pretty intense rivalry here between Abu Dhabi, Dubai and Qatar. They all want to claim the film as their own and take credit for generating the publicity.”

Kanye and his team are said to be very mindful of portraying the people of the Middle East in an authentic way that will hopefully shed many of the stereotypes of the area.

“His reps seemed genuinely enthusiastic about creating a piece which highlights the culture accurately,” one source told The Observer. “There’s a lot of preconceived notions and stereotypes about Emiratis and Qataris, which Westerners often play up. They discussed how Kanye is looking to bridge the cultural divide and break misconceptions.”

West took audiences by surprise with just how inventive he was behind the camera with Runaway, and now everyone's expectations will be set even higher with this new project. He went out of his way to craft a story exclusively for the Middle East, so West obviously has a clear vision of what he wants. We'll see if he can pull it off when the film eventually debuts.